Born: Bury, England, 1941
Depicted in countless canvases and drawings by David Hockney, Celia Birtwell is a talented textile designer and superb colourist, most famous for her electric collaborations with her late ex-husband, Ossie Clark. Both are immortalized in London’s Tate Gallery’s most popular portrait, Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy, painted by Hockney in 1970.
Celia – then a beatnik in winkle-picker shoes – met Ossie Clark via Mo McDermott in Manchester. She had been attending Salford Art School since the age of 13, eventually teaching cake decoration. Celia travelled south to London in 1962. She never went back.
Most famous for her extraordinary prints on silk chiffon, which she produced during her marriage to Ossie Clark, she now has her own shop in London’s Westbourne Park Road and has a fabric collection called ‘Celia’s Stripes’ to be launched by Zoffany in the millennium. Speaking in 1994 of her partnership with Ossie Clark, she said, ‘We were marvellous together. A very peculiar, strange mix that was pretty powerful.’
